𝐇𝐞𝐫 𝐏𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐭 || ᴊᴇɴʟɪsᴀ

𝐞 𝐢 𝐠 𝐡 𝐭

Early Sunday morning, she fell asleep after orgasm three and I snuck out and called for a car. Between orgasms one and two, we agreed that keeping it casual meant sleeping over was too personal, too involved. Between orgasms two and three we decided three or four nights a week was a good start. A healthy amount of time to spend together.

Bobby, the driver who picked me up, seemed unsure about how to take my appearance and general languor. I couldn’t blame him. I was totally and thoroughly fucked—in the best way of course—and I looked it. When I wished him good morning, Bobby ducked his head, cheeks reddening and rushed his reply. He’d only been my driver for a few months, taking Chaerin's off shifts, and was evidently still nervous despite my giving him no reason to be. Polite to employees, remember? He reminded me of Frankenstein—tall and bulky, stiff posture but seemingly sweet and harmless.

Back home, I rushed directly to my office, logged onto our work servers and found the document I wanted. Sighing, I printed it. “This isn’t an inconvenience, Jennie. It’s a smart thing to do. It’s necessary. You will not self-sabotage, because you have to treat yourself better than that. And you’re talking aloud to yourself. You need to go to sleep.” I scrawled my name and stuck some sign here flags on the paper then left it on my desk. Upstairs, I fell asleep on top of my covers, still dressed and with my contacts in.

I woke an indeterminate time later to my phone sounding a text alert.

Lisa Manoban:  Brunch?

I replied with nothing but my address and rolled out of bed with the intention of showering and attempting to tame my sex hair. Until I made the mistake of checking on some accounts. I was still standing over the kitchen counter with my tablet, unshowered, sex hair intact when one of the building security guys, Carl called up to tell me a Ms. Manoban was here and could he send her up?

Ms. Manoban waved off my apologies when I rushed across my foyer and unlocked my front door. “Sorry, I meant to tell them to let you come right up.” On tiptoes with a hand on her shoulder, I kissed her cheek.

“It’s fine. Though it was a little weird to have someone assist me with taking an elevator.”

I grinned. “All part of the service, ma’am. I’ll let them know you’re to be let up without calling from now on.” The door closed behind us, locking itself again with a soft click.

She nodded, biting her lower lip on a smile. With a barely perceptible turn of her head, she glanced around like she was trying not to be too obvious. My house style was to have no style, which according to my stylist was a style. How stylish of me.

I loved my floor to ceiling glass windows, distressed reclaimed hardwood floors and mezzanine sleeping area. The space was a mismatch of retro furniture pieces I’d found in my weekends trawling garage sales or antique stores. My walls were full of art and photographs, and I’m the first to admit that the general vibe of my penthouse was clean but disorganized. I knew where everything was, and that was…just sitting everywhere.

My cleaning lady had learned long ago to dust around the piles of books on the bedside table and floor beside my bed. She ignored plastic wrapped dry cleaning that had stopped to rest over the back of my couches, or the couch-robes as Mama called them. Laundry I left in the dryer was folded then piled neatly on my bed, where it usually stayed for a few days until I got around to putting it away. Only my office was spotless, everything orderly and always set in its rightful place.

I made a vague gesture. “Feel free to look around, or I can give you the tour. It’s fairly standard. My sleeping area is up top.” I pointed toward the glass paneling that bordered the top level. “Down here are guest rooms, kitchen, great room, atrium, office etcetera.”